


a mother's many wisdoms

by unicyclehippo



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22031272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: in which Marion sees Beau's feelings and has a long talk with her and is the best and maybe only mum Beau has ever had
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 129
Kudos: 1095





	a mother's many wisdoms

It is not late by the time the Mighty Nein make it to the Lavish Chateau but the sky is dark with clouds and the whole troupe is windswept and half-drowned. The screaming summer squall had swept in from across the sea as they were picking their way down from the mountain to the city and there had been no recourse and no way to avoid it there on the cliffs; by the gate, they were soaked, so onwards they pressed. The Chateau is not empty by any means; it is just shy of being full, actually—with a more diverse collection gathered within than the first time the Nein had visited. A resplendent few dripping with jewels are vastly outnumbered by dozens of common folk dripping with water, who clearly sought out shelter from the storm.

Walking inside, the Nein are met by a wall of warm, wet air that tastes heavily of cinnamon and spiced, stewing meats, and the unavoidable scent of wet dog. The chamber is bathed in warm light from the dozens and dozens of scattered candles. The smell and crash of sound, laughter, and good cheer is a welcome counterpoint to the shriek and crack of wind-whipped cloth awnings and the wreck of the storm as it chases through the tangled streets.

A young, fresh-faced man in Chateau livery ducks and weaves through the crowd. He looks bright and lively, if somewhat ruffled—the topmost button of his shirt has been popped to let him breathe and once-coiffed hair sits awry from sweat and effort; an energetic duck to avoid a tray makes it shift even more to the left. His smile, when he reaches the Nein, is welcoming, if a little distressed upon seeing the puddle that forms beneath them.

‘Ah—alright! Well, we can’t send you back out there,’ he says. Claps his hands loud enough that even over the crush of conversation and music he can be heard. In that crush, several more servers appear and begin to pick their way over. ‘Let’s see what we can do to get you dry, hm?’

‘Are the second level baths free? We can just go there—‘

‘My apologies, ma’am. You are, of course, welcome to come in but only customers staying at the Chateau may move to the higher levels—oh!’ He takes a step back, seeing Jester’s disguise fall away. ‘Miss Lavorre!’

It comes as no surprise to see the way he brightens upon seeing Jester, his smile wide and honest and happy. She has that effect on people.

‘Miss Lavorre _and company_!’ she adds snootily, ending with a little laugh at herself; it’s clear that she is aware of the picture she makes—hair plastered to her head, skirts heavy and dripping. The skirts can, as it turns out, hold a _lot_ of water.

‘Of course, of course, here—take these towels and follow me. We’ll have to go through the kitchens and up the back stairs, we’re a little full up at the moment,’ he tells them, and when they glance into the chamber once more, over to the stairs, yet more people are packed into that space all the way up to the shining satin ribbon that blocks their ascent. They agree quickly to follow.

//

The baths smell clean and fresh and even the most reluctant of them to get wet—Nott, followed closely by a miserable looking Caduceus—relax into the gentle fall of water and the soothing scent of the soaps and bubbling liquids Jester pours into their tubs. Within the mosaic-tiled bath hall stand a half-dozen tubs, three of them now filled. Each is large enough for two or three to sit comfortably. The baths are made not of wood but of a smooth white stone and have been filled nearly to the brim with steaming water. Each is separated from the others by tall screens of metal and treated wood carved into intricate designs of cresting waves and splashing dolphins and—

‘Is that a naked lady?’ Nott asks. The words bubble half-formed into the water that covers her mouth. She splutters. Spits. Emerges a bit from the water. ‘Is that a naked lady, Jes?’

‘Mhm, ya.’

‘Why?’

‘You _do_ remember where we _are_ , don’t you, silly? Lavish Chateau? Mama is the best lay ever? People like to see boobs sometimes?’

Half-asleep with her arms resting along on the lip of the bath, Beau raises one hand. She has more right than most to the bath, being the most recently almost dead of the lot of them. Her newest scars are well-healed and nearly gone, the most vicious of them a barely visible line of knitted skin that had cut across her front, across her clavicle. An _inch_ higher and…

Jester giggles. ‘Yes, Beau, you have a question?’

‘Nope. Justa fan of boobs,’ she slurs, exhaustedly.

‘I mean, they’re _pretty_ great.’

Nott nods easily. In the haze of steam and everyone’s fatigue, it is easy to miss the way she looks from Beau to Jester and back again, and just as easy to miss the way she looks down at herself, expression falling into familiar sad lines. Even in the loveliest bath in the world, her skin is still as green as ever, body all sharp and flat where once were stout curves.

‘Welp! Time for me to get out of this death trap and go find my husband!’ she announces, all sharp twanging notes. Her eyes slide across to the sheen of platinum—the cap on the tap pouring hot water into their bath, not the right sheen of platinum at all, not her comfortable comforting flash at _all_. Just more fucking water. Nott climbs from the bath. Slips on the edge, smooth and slick with soap. Wrapping herself in as many towels as she can grab does little to mitigate the voice in her mind that reminds her of the slimy skin she wears, the grotesque nature inherent in her flesh, her face.

Jester turns over. Pulls herself to the side of the tub, water sloshing over its edge. Nott takes a few steps clear of it. She’s warm now, and drying. ‘If you want to room with me and Beau, you’re welcome to! You know,’ she lowers her voice, ‘if you need to drop your disguise.’

Nott bites back a too-harsh reply. Floods her tongue with iron. ‘Thank you.’

‘Of course!’

‘That’s okay with you too, Beau?’ Nott ignores Jester’s look of surprise, but can’t miss the way the girl twists, splashing, rounded shoulders turning in the bath water, her tail flicking water toward their dozing third.

‘Hng what?’

‘If I sleep with you and Jessie tonight?’ Nott says, a little more slyly than she means to, eager to get the attention _off_ of her, to point it at someone else. There’s a spark of glee, hurtful as it is, when she sees Beau’s eyes flash open, filled with surprise at the hint of knowing, the hint of her secret. Surprise and also, Nott registers, stomach twisting, _hurt_.

‘Sure,’ Beau says after a moment. ‘No problem. Yasha?’

‘Ya?’

‘Nott might sneak in tonight so don’t kill her when she does, yeah?’

Nott’s stomach clenches like a fist. They’re passing it all around now, this pain. Her to Beau. Beau to Yasha. Yasha holds onto it and sinks with it, low into the bath. She nods. Submerges herself entirely.

‘Great.’

‘Great,’ Jester echoes Beau, glances between all of them curiously. She shrugs, flops into the bathwater to make it splash again. She stretches out like the decadent creature she is; hums happily, reaches her hands up into the air, rolling her head on her neck and pulling the escaped locks of soaked hair back up into their bun.

Beau is still staring at Nott. Her jaw works in small, angry motions, back molars grinding.

 _Sorry_ , Nott mouths. Slips out.

//

Dinner is a slow, drawn out affair. The meals come piece meal from the overworked kitchens, but no one minds. They eat on Marion’s balcony, the Nein and Yeza and Luc, Nugget at their feet, and Marion too. Watch the deluge strike the city with silver in the gloaming hour. Jester’s mother entertains them with light and glittering tales, making them laugh and relax into their seats and their cups; soon they are pouring out their own stories—of adventures and close calls, most of them trying to impress Marion or at least one up each other. Marion smiles and listens and asks them delicately spun questions, pulling more and more from them. More than they might have shared otherwise but they’re half-drunk on good wind and half-drunk on exhaustion so the stories do come out. Eventually tired heads lean on tired shoulders, and eyes that would not ordinarily linger begin to do so, and Marion watches it all with the keen attention she is so practiced at. Two-fold where Jester is concerned.

Stumbling from her chambers, Fjord slings an arm around Caleb’s shoulders. Grins at his slow blink of surprise.

‘Ah. Hallo.’

‘Hallo,’ Fjord mimics perfectly. He doesn’t fake the swaggering accent anymore but being so close to the coast seems to have returned to him some spark, some of that rolling, swaggering step. ‘You’re rooming with me and Cad tonight? Boys night? C’mon, say yes,’ he croons, laughs.

Caleb searches for Nott, who is nearing the end of her third disguise spell and walking with her husband and son away from them. Caleb nods. Doesn’t look terribly displeased by the alternative Fjord is offering, and the boys don’t seem surprised or upset that they are his second choice. It is what is it, and honestly? It isn’t so bad.

‘Ja. Ja, okay.’

Splitting at the corridor—many half-baked ideas thrown between them all on how best to spend the next day—the boys turn left and down to their chamber, girls right and winding up, up the stairs to Jester’s turret room.

Jester crawls with a groan into her bed. Collapses fully clothed. She doesn’t so much as shift to help when Beau pulls at her boots, bracing one at a time against her hip so she can fiddle with the laces. Finally, even somewhat hazed, she loosens them enough to slip off. Tosses them toward the door and drops Jester’s socked feet back to the mattress. They bounce and she pats Jester on the calf. Fingers slip down to her ankle. Squeezes.

‘Thank you, Beau,’ Jester mumbles, sing-songs, into her pillow. She’s well toward asleep already. Beau takes the quilt folded on the chair and flicks it up and over her.

‘We are sleeping on the floor, then?’ Yasha asks. There’s something odd about the way she asks and Beau frowns, shrugs.

‘Sure. Better than on the road, right? Carpet and all that.’

‘I am not complaining,’

‘Kinda sounded like it.’

‘No.’

‘Yeah, kinda did.’

Yasha smiles, looking very tired and amused. ‘You know, I learned a phrase. A – a saying from Nott the other day. Halflings have very interesting sayings. Would you like to hear it?’

Beau waves for her to speak. She might know Halfling but there’s always conversational sayings that only native speakers know about.

Cocking her head thoughtfully, Yasha looks to be trying to remember it precisely. Set the words in their right order. ‘You’ve got…ears like corn,’ she says after a moment. ‘I think it means you’re not listening, because corn are vegetables?’

Beau laughs. Grabbing the bedroll strapped to her pack, she pulls out her notebook as well and after she has made up her bed she sits and turns to a blank page in the book to start to explain to Yasha what the joke is and why it’s funny.

//

When morning dawns, the Nein prepare to split out across the city to search for potions and weapons and delightful things. All, that is, save for Beau.

‘Beau! Beau! Beau! Are you coming? Mama says there’s another troupe in town and Orly says he’ll be back in port this afternoon with the Ball Eater, I sent a message to him this morning and he’s got heaps of money for us and a new paint job and—‘

‘When this morning? It’s fuckin’ dawn, Jes,’ Beau grumbles. She pulls her pillow over her head in an effort to block the shards of morning light that stream through the shuttered window. The breath is knocked out of her when Jester laughs, and again less metaphorically when Jester drops down _hard_ onto her stomach and yanks the pillow away. Behind that pillow, Jester is smiling hard into Beau’s face.

‘Morning breath,’ Beau warns.

‘I don’t mind,’ Jester lies. She sits up a little straighter, entirely by happenstance further away from Beau. ‘We have _so_ much planned! Caleb wants to go to a –‘

‘Bookstore.’

‘Duh. Fjord and Caddy are going to the lighthouse and I’m gonna go to—I want to find a way into her boobs this time,’ Jester confides, leaning in again.

It’s something fucking else to have Jester straddling her—sitting on her—and talking about the breasts of a goddess. Even a stone statue. To distract herself, Beau tries to snag her pillow and groans when Jester whips it out of reach, tossing it back up onto the bed. With a sigh, Beau settles. Her hands want to rest naturally on Jester’s thighs and for a moment she actually almost does, doesn’t even _think_ about it, fingertips grazing so lightly against them before she pulls her hands away. Tries to make it seem natural but she thinks she moves them too fast, too quick to pull away.

Beau folds her hands behind her head and pins them there with her heavy skull.

‘Incredible. Gods. Okay, wait, hold on a fuckin’—you didn’t answer my question and those _I dunno what you’re talking about_ eyes aren’t gonna do _shit_ , Jes. Unless you don’t wanna talk about it, which is fine, but—when did you wake up?’

‘Oh, you know. Early, I guess?’

Her eyes slide away to the window and back to Beau. Not for the first time, Beau reassesses her opinion on Jester’s lying. She really is very good at it. Provided, of course, that no one looks too hard or watches for so long. But Beau can’t seem to keep her eyes off her and so she gets to see the edge of that mask. It’s almost scary, to see the lies. See that mask, the moments of sadness when Jester thinks no one can see her. It’s scary in the way that standing at the top of the Arbor Exemplar was scary. Like being on the ocean floor was scary and watching a storm be called in. Like standing on the edge of an immense, clicking, whirring tower that continues as far as the eye can see and leaping off from it through the fluctuations in gravity; seeing Jester and the glimpses in her of yet further depths…it’s big. Knowing Jester is big, in a way that Beau won’t name. _Can’t_ name.

‘Early.’

‘Yah.’

‘Was it still dark out?’ Beau hears the interrogation in her tone. Softens immediately. Pulling a hand from behind her head, she drops it on Jester’s knee. Rubs soothingly. ‘Did—were you having trouble sleeping or something? I know you’ve spent forever here and,’

‘Not _forever_.’ Jester rolls her eyes, laughs. ‘Just a lot of the time. But we’re going out to do so many fun things and buy so many pretty dresses with the money we won and we get to see the city and I won’t be alone this time!’ She realizes at the same time as Beau what she has said, as much as admitted to having been on her mind. Jester bites her lip.

Beau does her the favour of not commenting on it, though they both know she heard it and filed it away.

‘Jes,’ she sighs.

Jester’s eyes open wide, lips pushing into a pout. She knows that tone. ‘No, Beau, you _have_ to come with us, you _have_ to!’

‘I’ve got a lot of shit to go over in my notebooks for Dairon—‘

‘No, Beau, _no_ , you can’t do _work_ at the _beach_!’

She closes her eyes as Jester’s pout intensifies. ‘—and even if I didn’t, I still a _hundred_ per cent got beat to shit yesterday and I really, really just wanna soak and, like, not do anything.’ Peeking up at Jester, she finds to her surprise that Jester doesn’t seem upset or annoyed or like she’s plotting to change Beau’s mind. If anything, she looks…sad? ‘Jes?’

‘Are you okay?’ she asks Beau, voice soft. Her attention drifts to the scar just below Beau’s throat. A blue hand drops from where she had been fiddling with her necklace. One finger drags over the scar, the still-tender line of the wound. Swirls at the jagged end that curls nearly into the hollow of Beau’s clavicle.

Beau shivers. Sets her hand on Jester’s, squeezes. ‘I’m okay, Jes. Honest.’

‘You’re not just saying it?’

‘Expositor’s honour.’

Jester’s eyes narrow. ‘Right. Like how you said you liked those pastries.’

‘What I _said_ was that they were _edible_.’

‘That’s practically a compliment coming from you!’ Beau’s face twists like she sucked on a lemon; Jester laughs. ‘Okay, okay, maybe not. But you’re really okay?’

‘Yeah. I just figured take advantage of this whole situation.’ She pats at Jester’s knees to get her friend to stand, and follows in a smooth swift movement that belies the hours sleeping on the hard wooden floor. Jester sits on her bed, bounces a little. ‘Take a break, y’know? Gods, that’s good,’ she mutters, twisting to crack what feels like every vertebrae in her spine. She untwists, stretches her hands up above her head as she smiles down at Jester. ‘We’ve been going non-stop for what feels like forever and, like, how many times am I really gonna get a chance to be in Nicodranas? In the Lavish Chateau of all places?’

‘You can come as many times as you want.’ Jester says it like it should be obvious, like it’s something she’s allowed to offer. She also doesn’t seem to notice the joke within a hairs distance of her. Just says, entirely too earnestly for Beau’s heart to deal with, ‘You are _always_ welcome, Beau.’

‘Uh. Yeah. That’s—cool, no, that’s really nice of y—‘ Beau centres herself. Doesn’t dwell overmuch on her friends generosity, the force of her smile. ‘I just emant, all I really want—most in the world right now—is a bath, a massage, and to get my hair cut. And I can get all of that right here, I don’t have to go anywhere at all.’

Jester hesitates. Nods a few times, understanding washing over her face. ‘You want to chill.’

‘Ex- _actly_.’

‘Cool, cool, cool,’

‘Just for today,’ Beau is quick to assure her. ‘I’ll help you – uh –’ She casts around for an idea and, regretting it even as she says it, offers, ‘ – vandalise the Marquis’ Palace tomorrow if that’s what you want. I won’t actually because I think everyone wants to stay in one place for over two days and that feels like exactly the kind of thing that’ll get us exiled or maybe even killed here. But – uh – we cant get dinner or something with Orly when he’s back and eat on the ship, check it out. Look at the city lights from the ocean, maybe. All of us. Altogether. The team, as a team event.’

Jester seems delighted, whether by the ideas whizzing through her mind or by Beau’s sudden and inexplicable awkwardness.

‘Okay! That sounds nice!’

‘Dinner or vandalizing?’

‘I’ll message Orly and I’ll tell Suda that whatever you want, you get!’

‘Jes! Dinner or vandalizing? _Jester_?’ Beau calls after her as the other girl sweeps out of the room in a twirl of skirts and hair and perfume—and a decent bit of sand as well, Beau is left wondering if she had already been to the beach that morning or if it were left over from their earlier excursions to the sea. She wouldn’t be surprised by either, but especially not the latter—Beau had found a dried clump of sand in the toe of her boot only a few days back, and not the gritted type from the Barbed Fields but golden and fine. Still thinking of that sand, and the wide blue ocean, and Jester, Beau falls back into her bedroll and sleeps.

//

True to her word, Jester had told Suda what Beau was wanting and a lot more besides. Beau had to wave away a woman who offered to serenade her during her bath, another whose purpose was ostensibly to scrub her back, and a third who came bearing a platter of sweet tangy fruit.

The fruit stayed. The women did not.

The massage that followed was perfect. A flame-haired man whose muscles had been stacked in heavy layers upon seemingly every inch of his body stepped into the breezy room where Suda had set her and when he left, Beau hurt worse than she does after a full session with Dairon. But also warm all over, and smooth with the pleasant-smelling oils he had used, and blissfully relaxed.

Boneless after her massage, Beau stands at the foot of the stairs and eyes them with mounting apprehension. The idea of having to climb up them when she feels so relaxed seems nigh on impossible, honestly. All she wants to do is lay right where she is and _sleep_. It is as she stands there that there is the faintest hint of someone behind her; for an instant, Beau is certain it is Jester and turns with a smile, only to see red in stead of blue and horns that sweep back, grand and somewhat intimidating.

‘Madam Lavorre! Hi! Uh – hello – I didn’t expect –‘ Beau pulls her mind back from its respite into sharp focus once more. What would be polite? What would charming Fjord say? ‘Are you headed up? Do you want—may I escort you to your rooms?’

Marion rewards her with a smile. ‘That would be lovely, Miss Lione—‘

‘Beau,’ she interrupts before Marion can finish. ‘Just—Beau. Just Beau, please.’

The interruption, the request, makes Beau feel hot all over. It happens fast, too, like a flash fire. She blames the massage. Made her drop her guard. But Marion—if she notices, if she minds—gives no indication that Beau has been rude. Just curls long fingers tipped with gold-painted talons around the elbow Beau offers her.

‘It would be lovely to walk with you, Beau.’ She’s good. Gods, she’s good. Nothing about the way she says her name sounds like she uses it on purpose. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt, though—you seemed to be having a, ah, staring contest with the stairs?’

‘Oh. No.’ Beau’s flush grows hotter at the thought of Marion having seen her standing there. How long _had_ she been standing there? ‘Didn’t want to climb the stairs, that’s all.’

‘Well, there’s no need to on my account, my dear,’

Beau shakes her head before Marion can pull away. ‘For you, I’d do a lot,’ she says with a rakish grin. Overt, dramatic. The kind of grin that says she is doing it for fun. When it pulls a laugh like chiming bells from Marion, Beau lets the grin drop. ‘We all would.’

They begin up the stairs.

‘I believe I am aware of that. Your merry band is…well,’ She steps closer to Beau, sets her second hand over the first. The adjusted hold forces Beau to adjust her step as well, slowing her stride, and their pace turns from climbing the staircase to simply wandering up it.

‘Rude? Wild? A _lot_?’

Marion laughs again. The skin at the corners of her eyes folds in those familiar creases of laughter, life-long laughter. Beau finds herself staring a moment too long, entranced by the sight of it. Of her, like that. Embarrassing as it might be to be caught staring, for Marion to see anything about her at all, Beau is glad to have seen that. It seems important, somehow.

Again, Marion doesn’t comment on it. Instead, she says, ‘All of those things, most definitely.’ Squeezes Beau’s arm when Beau snorts. ‘I was going to say heaven sent, actually.’

Beau blinks. ‘Huh?’

‘You must think of it from my perspective. Jester had—very few friends while she lived here.’

‘None, is what I heard.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Beau sees Marion wince at the bluntness of that comment. ‘Maybe one.’

Marion glances away, out the shuttered window they pass with its little planter box of small flowers. ‘I’m never sure if he truly does count. So you’re correct. She had no true friends while she was here and when she had to leave… I was terribly afraid,’ Marion admits.

Though her tone is light, Beau feels the sudden prick of nails against her skin. She brings no attention to it. They come to the second floor and continue on toward the third, and Marion’s chambers there.

‘So when Jester told me she had made friends, I admit, not all of my fears were soothed but a number of them were. But how could I know that these people she had thrown her lot in with were good? Or decent? And then she returned home and I was able to meet you all and—‘

‘Found out we were neither good nor decent.’

Marion clicks her tongue disapprovingly. But she’s smiling again. It looks right; she looks too much like Jester, or Jester like her, to suit a frown.

‘You care for my daughter a great deal. All of you,’ she adds after the smallest fraction, barely noticeable but too long, too perfect to be accidental.

‘Yeah. We do.’

‘She could have fallen in with brigands or bandits or – ‘ Marion shudders delicately. ‘ _Tax collectors._ But instead she happened to find two good friends, and then two more, and two more, and yet another, and every one of you good people.’ It seems base, crass, to disagree with Marion’s assessment. So Beau doesn’t. ‘Who would help _me_ on the request of my daughter, on simply hearing of his…indecorous behaviour.’

‘He was a creep.’

‘I will never not be worried about her, but it does ease my mind to know that she has you.’

‘She saves us. All the time. Maybe not exactly what you want to hear, about us being in danger and all, but it’s true. She’s _strong_. And smart. And really, really kind. You don’t ever have to worry about Jes becoming a tax collector. A bandit in a heart beat, but a tax collector? Nah.’

Marion’s laughter rings out around them, echoing down the spiralling ring of stairs.

When they make it to her quarters, Beau attempts to leave but Marion’s hold on her is unshakeable, despite the fact that it is light and gentle. It’s like a dance; every time Beau thinks she’s about to say goodbye and extricate herself, somehow she is three paces deeper into the front chamber and three paces deeper again and Marion is asking her opinion on a piece of jewellery—because Jester mentioned it, you see, in passing that Beau has rather a keen eye for jewels and gems—and then Marion is draping herself onto her chaise with a glass of what _looks_ like wine but doesn’t smell of it at all and Beau is sitting opposite her with a steaming mug of tea.

‘Have you enjoyed your time today?’

‘Very much.’

‘The ladies of the house have taken good care of you?’

Beau leans back. Crosses one ankle over the opposite knee. She sets her mug down on that ankle, feels the warmth suffuse through her skin and into the much-maligned joint she must have twisted at some point. ‘The ladies have been very generous,’ she says. ‘Very…enthusiastic.’

‘I’m not surprised. Jester was rather insistent that we all take very good care of you.’

‘She speaks highly of the Chateau. She’s – she’s really happy to get to come back and show it off. It’ll be nice to stay for a couple days. Hope we aren’t putting you out though.’ Beau wonders if she’s saying too much, something she shouldn’t say, when she adds, ‘Jes worries about that, you know. That we’re…imposing.’

Marion smiles, lovely and languid. Golden eyes glint with emotion Beau can’t name and with the now early afternoon light that streams in fluttering ribbons through her windows.

‘Jester never could. And you’re hardly asking for much—two rooms, dinner?’ Her lashes flutter, smile sharpens. ‘What an _imposition_ ,’ she teases. ‘Such a hardship.’

Beau doesn’t let herself fall into the comfort Marion is giving her. She’s not the one that needs it, after all. ‘You need to tell her that. She’ll keep worrying about it otherwise.’ When Marion inclines her head, she adds, ‘And you need to tell her that she’s not interrupting you and your companions. That you’d prefer to spend that time with her because she never wants to get you in any trouble or be in the way so you need to fix that.’

There’s no way to tell if Marion is hurt or angered by what Beau has said. Beau thinks she is, though, because she retaliates with, ‘It’s good to see that someone is protecting Jester’s heart as well,’ and Beau can read multitudes into the way golden eyes narrow. ‘More tea?’

Beau holds out her mug. When it is filled, and they are settled again, she nods toward Marion’s wine-glass. Asks, ‘Are you a fan of grape juice, Madam Lavorre?’

Marion laughs artfully, the same way she does everything else. Casts her head back, neck making a lovely line. Dark curls tumbling freely around her shoulders. ‘Not a thing gets past you, does it? Except perhaps the half dozen times I’ve asked you to call me Marion,’ she adds, the tiniest edge to the words. Marion lifts the glass. Admires the swirl of deep red wine. It _looks_ like a beautiful body to the wine – ruby red when she holds it up to the light, not too thin – but there’s no scent to it at all. ‘A simple illusion. I had it done years ago. People talk more freely when they think you’re drinking along with them.’

Beau nods. She knows that’s true. ‘Plus, it doesn’t hurt that a good red is the sexiest of all drinks.’

‘Do you think so?’ Marion eyes her, no hint of her own preference in her cool assessment.

‘Hundred per cent.’

‘Fascinating. Even with your history?’

Beau freezes. Forces herself to thaw, hands wrapping tighter around the warm mug and leaning back in her seat, nonchalant. ‘Jester really does tell you a lot, huh.’ Marion’s fond smile is a _yes_. Beau sips. ‘Whatever she told you, it’s not… She just knows how I feel about them. Not anything specific. Not anything real.’

‘Perhaps not specific,’ Marion agrees, ‘but real? I think so.’

It almost makes Beau smile, this delicate two-step they’re engaged in. Beau hasn’t had many good experiences with dancing, but this? The curious questions coming her way and Beau stepping onto her back foot, not quite lying—that is, being as truthful as she can manage to be, can _bear_ to be—and spinning them along into another topic and getting not-lies in return. And throughout it all, Marion leading and doing a very good job at seeming like she’s the one following. This is something Beau has always enjoyed and Marion is the master of it.

Beau shrugs. ‘Jester exaggerates.’ There’s a twinge of guilt as she says it. ‘That’s not—I just mean, she – all of ‘em – just know that he’s a jackass. That’s all there is to it,’ she tells Marion, tone firm. Unshifting. ‘Doesn’t have shit to do with knowing wine.’

‘Is that so? Because from everything I’ve been told, I had gathered that the wine—and the estate, and the wealth, the _fortune_ as she put it—were all somehow tied into _you_. And that however that tricky knot is tied, your father is monstrously displeased by it. Jester isn’t sure exactly _how_ yet, but she seems rather intent on figuring it out.’

Marion waits for Beau’s answer. The crystalline cut of her perfect face shifts as her waiting stretches into long moments, into a minute and more; the smooth planes of her face—pristine and reflective, showing nothing but whatever someone _wants_ to see in that face—soften and bleed into nothing more than perfect regret.

‘That was unkind of me,’ Marion says in lieu of apology.

‘’s fine.’

‘It’s not. I’m well aware that it is a…sore spot.’

‘I’m all sore spots right now,’ Beau jokes. It falls flat. In her sleeveless state, both of them are aware of her bruises, and scars, and the pink line just south of her throat. She clears her throat. ‘Uh. Thanks for the tea, Mada— _Marion_.’ She is rewarded once more with a smile. ‘I have someone waiting, though.’

‘Oh?’ Marion’s surprise is real. Beau can hear it in the way the question trills.

‘Yeah. I’m getting a haircut so I should probably,’ she jerks her thumb toward the closed doors. Stands.

‘Oh,’ Marion says again, and Beau doesn’t trust the amusement in it. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you?’ Beau _really_ doesn’t trust it. ‘I’ll be cutting your hair, my dear.’

‘Huh?’ Eloquent.

‘I’m a woman of _many_ talents,’ she says, and stands, and sets her wine aside so that she can move closer to Beau and reach up to her cheek, fingers sliding into the short and now somewhat shaggy hair of Beau’s undercut. Keen eyes examine the length of it, and the now well and truly hidden line of the cut. ‘One such talent happens to be for cutting hair.’

‘Oh. Uh,’

If Beau thought for a split second that this was a lie, Marion turns and gestures toward the balcony where she sees for the first time now the seat set there at the edge, a pedestal sink standing beside and behind it, where a towel has been folded and a gleaming straight razor laid upon it.

‘Shall we?’

Beau swallows. It sticks in her throat, closed tight with sudden anxiety and the rising swell of upset that always comes with the mention of her father, her family.

‘I really am very good,’ Marion adds, sounding apologetic of the fact. ‘But we needn’t talk during, if you prefer not to.’ She laughs at the way Beau’s cheeks flood with colour. ‘ _Beauregard_. During your _haircut_.’

‘I know,’

‘Honestly.’ She huffs a laugh and then turns all business, walks Beau to the seat. ‘Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.’

When Marion disappears into her second room, Beau could leave. She _wants_ to leave. She had well and truly lost that fight? test? conversation? with Marion and now she wants to go and get fucked up—drunk or punch-drunk, either would work. Standing at the balcony’s edge, Beau sees not the curling spires of towers and peaks of tiled roofs but a dark-wood study and her dad’s face and feels the weight of his disapproval, the undercurrent of _hatred_ that he has for her, has had for her whole life with no apparent source. Beau should leave. She’s no good company when she’s thinking about this shit, and she’s definitely no good sparring partner when her thoughts are stuck on a loop.

Beau shrugs out of her shirt, leaving herself in her wraps and a breezy undershirt. She folds the vestments in crisp folds, sets it aside.

She sits.

The balcony is not terribly large. There is more than space enough for her, the pedestal, and for Marion whenever she joins Beau. The floor of it is tiled in prettily painted tiles, a clay-baked orange painted with tiny black flowers. As Beau scans the pattern, she notes a few places where the design has been ever so delicately altered—a few scattered dicks added to the display. The railing is low and even seated Beau has a clean view over the top of it and out to the ocean. She can hear the crash and the pull of waves against the shore. The chatter of conversation from the streets below. Smell the salt on the wind. And as she sits there and forces herself to _breathe_ , she looks at the wide expanse of blue that has saved her life once before and pushes the vile thoughts back and away to be dealt with some other time.

‘Good, you’re still here.’

Beau turns a fraction to see Marion stepping out. She has changed into a more casual outfit—pants and a blousy shirt, the sleeves of which she has folded crisply to her elbows—and gathered her hair back with a pretty golden comb, twisting it with apparent ease to where it won’t fall into her eyes as she works.

‘Still here,’ Beau agrees.

‘I wasn’t sure you would be.’

‘Yeah. Figured you were giving me an out.’

The smile she earns for that—somehow, for some reason, Beau can’t figure this woman out—is dazzling. ‘Smart girl,’ she says, approvingly. Then, ‘And yet you stayed?’

‘What can I say? Glutton for punishment.’

Marion laughs, though it isn’t funny. She makes her way fully forward to stand behind Beau, guides her face forward toward the ocean again. She plucks at the ribbon holding Beau’s hair. ‘May I?’

‘Huh? Yeah. Sure. You know, you don’t have to do this. I can run out somewhere else and…’ Beau trails off as Marion pulls the ribbon from her hair and runs her fingers through it, familiarising herself with it, seems to enjoy playing with it. Parting her hair in different places and seeing out how it falls in a small side mirror she places where Beau can ignore it, if she chooses to.

She does choose to.

‘I enjoy cutting hair,’ Marion tells her. ‘Very much. I used to do it for Jester often. She had the longest hair when she was a child, nearly tripping over it. Oh, I loved it so. And I loved it just as much when she came to me and asked to cut it shorter. I think we spent, mm, three? Four hours together. Right here,’ she tells Beau. ‘I so rarely get the chance to do this anymore, so thank you.’ A moment passes. She shifts the low stool she has sat herself upon so that she is side-on to Beau and examines carefully the much-outgrown line of Beau’s undercut. Then, eyes flicking up from under crimson lashes, ‘Do you really consider this punishment?’

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

Beau’s smile isn’t as carefully made as it usually is. Marion can’t really see it, after all. ‘All the time,’ she sighs.

‘I’m sorry. That is a lonely life. The habits we fall into… The ways we end up defending ourselves can be as painful as what we were afraid of in the beginning.’

‘I thought you said we weren’t gonna talk about heavy shit while you were doing this,’ Beau croaks.

‘…I did say that. You’re very right.’

Marion works in silence then for a time, only breaking it to tell Beau what she wants to do. Clean her hair first, then brush, then lather and cut. She works with gentle and firm hands, works cleaning products into Beau’s hair that she washes out expertly, tilting Beau’s head back into the sink and pouring water from a small bowl to Beau’s hairline, the water dripping back and away. Not a single drop splashes forward and Beau thinks that if she had been wearing makeup that it would have remained untouched throughout the entire process. She works it through Beau’s hair twice, followed by a very faintly smelling heavier product. Beau feels herself tense when she sees the comb Marion pulls out, but the woman works out any knots gently, never ripping through her hair. Beau feels it as a tickle on her scalp, and never more than the mildest tug. And as Marion combs and brushes and smooths her hair and pours warm water that washes over her head and hair, Beau allows herself to be lulled into a peaceful state. The sky is blue above her when she is laying back, the sea is blue ahead, and after the storm the night before the sun is blissfully hot and after the rains, everything smells clean and clear.

Finally, Marion begins to cut the length of Beau’s hair to neatness, not taking overmuch from the ends except that hair that has split or been damaged. When that is done, she piles Beau’s hair atop her head. Lays a warm cloth over the back of her neck and head. Pulling a strop from somewhere, Marion works the razor along it carefully. The sound of it running over the canvas and leather into a sharp length relaxes Beau even further. This… this is familiar. The run and roll and run again of the blade bleeds into the rolling crash of waves. Beau’s shoulders relax. She stretches out her legs, boots tapping against the stone columns of the railing.

Marion sets down the razor.

‘Are you ready?’

Beau feels all taken apart—by her earlier pampering, by the conversation that felt like it scattered her, and now by this second type of massage, Marion’s fingers having rubbed and pulled at every inch of her scalp. She’s a pile of soft nerves in the shape of Beau and it takes a second for those nerves to spark a quiet grunt from her.

‘I’m going to shave this now,’ Marion tells her. Her fingers scratch in a tickle over the short hair; it almost feels…fond? Beau’s head ticks to the side, not quite away from the touch. Marion’s fingers pull back.

‘Mm. Yeah. Go for it.’

Marion begins. Presses Beau’s head down so that her chin is resting on her chest.

Beau’s eyes close.

The razor presses lightly against her hair and her hair falls away line after line after line. It feels good, always does. Like scraping muck away in the bathtub and seeing skin showing clean beneath it. But accompanying that first touch of the razor—that first drag and then the next and the next as cut hair drops, tickling, onto the exposed length of her neck—contrasting sensations of hot and cold crawl over her skin, spreading out from that vulnerable spot where spine meets neck. No—hot skin, from sitting in the sun, from some mild heated confusion at having Marion tend to her like this. Hot skin, but cold belly. Bubbles of the chilly sensation gather inside her at the junction of her windpipe and stomach and it makes her breathing squeeze tight, stutter, and her gut threatens to freeze solid.

The thing is—the experience of this _is_ familiar. Somewhat. Others have shaved her hair before. But that other person has never been Marion Lavorre, Jester’s mother. The other person has never taken near an hour of their time to wash her hair for her, or heated a cloth so that the razor won’t irritate her skin, or rubbed pretty-smelling oils into her hair, or spent all of this time in peaceful silence just because Beau asked for it. The other person has never worked at this like it is special, like it’s a gift, like it’s a gift freely given to her and like they’re taking some quiet pleasure in being able to give it to her. The other person has never taken so much intentional _care_ in this—just for _Beau_ —and it makes her itch all over.

Marion sets two fingers to the side of Beau’s head. Tilts her sideways and begins to work at the wispy little hairs above Beau’s ears. She folds down the shell of Beau’s ear, scrapes in tiny little lines, hands steady and gentle. The blade is sharp and doesn’t tug, but Beau can feel it, hear the rasp of it against her hair. Again and again and again. After a moment, she set the blade aside and thumbs at the hair there, checking to see how much has been taken off.

‘You’re a brave girl,’ she says, with no prelude to the comment.

Beau’s eyes flash open. ‘Huh?’ she asks, eloquent. Beau had removed her headband and she’s never been one to rely on anything outside of herself but boy she’s been relying on that fucking headband and now it feels like her thoughts are disjointed again, like they always used to be, messy and chaotic and all clamouring to be heard at once and she stumbles onto _something_ and just. Says it. ‘Ha – uh – I guess. Don’t know if you’re gonna make me look weird. Don’t make me look weird.’

Marion hums but doesn’t laugh. From the strained look Beau manages out of the corner of her eye, the woman looks serious and very focused on Beau’s hair. She has taken up the blade again and resumed her work.

‘Is hurting a part of love, Beau?’

It’s a bad idea but Beau can’t stop the way she jerks away from the razor. Luckily, Marion had pulled back or happened to not be so close so she isn’t hurt.

‘What? Why – I’m – ‘

‘It’s a simple question.’

‘It’s really the fuck not.’

Marion chuckles. ‘Maybe not. Come back here.’ Beau thinks about not letting her continue, about just leaving, but then finds that she is settling back into her place in the seat and Marion continues to work. ‘Forgive me. Maybe it’s just who I am, maybe it’s because of my work, but I’m curious. What do you think?’

Beau can look to the ocean now that she doesn’t have her head lowered. She watches as a ship cuts along the shore and out toward the sea.

‘I dunno.’

The answer makes her feel dumb. Small and dumb. Like she’s ungracious, blocking the conversation. And maybe, if she looked a little harder, she might be the smallest part afraid of where this new dance is leading.

‘What kind of love?’

‘Any.’

‘I don’t—know.’ Beau isn’t sure if she said that. Or if she had said in its place, _I don’t—no._ ‘Maybe not. I think – I’m not one for these deep discussions ‘n’ whatever but I figure it’s a part of being … alive. A person.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Don’t you?’

Marion hums again. Beau thinks it’s a thoughtful sound for her, a little refrain to voice in place of whatever sound she was going to make. A neat little mask of her own making.

‘I only ask because I’m concerned you’re hurting yourself with it.’ It goes unsaid, then, that Marion is saying with _love_.

It occurs to Beau then that she could jump the balcony. Climb down the outside of the Chateau and fuckin’ book it—sprint away, steal a horse, go further.

She doesn’t.

Marion has a knife to her neck, after all.

So she lies instead. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ The words come out in a dry croak and Beau stares dead ahead rather than see Marion’s pity—either at the lie itself, or how _badly_ Beau presents it.

Rather than leave her with it, Marion moves so that she is sitting in front of Beau and she touches her fingers to Beau’s cheek, guides her attention to a face open with mixed amusement and concern and something else Beau doesn’t recognise—but not a trace of pity. ‘I’m very sorry to tell you this, my darling,’ she says with a curling smile, ‘but you’re in love.’

Beau laughs. She can’t help it. It’s terribly surreal and strange to have Marion talk to her about this, about how she’s in love with Marion’s _daughter_. It doesn’t occur to Beau that she doesn’t know it’s Jester; she can see it in her eyes. She knows.

And Beau just –

‘What gave it away?’

‘Let’s call it…experience. And intuition.’

‘I’m an open fucking book is what you’re saying.’

‘Not at all. You’re very good at…’ She hesitates. Sets between her words a masterful pause that lets Beau know that while she doesn’t agree that it is a good thing, she knows _Beau_ thinks it is. ‘At hiding yourself. Your feelings, especially. I’m afraid that I may have had to take advantage of everyone’s exhaustion last night to…figure a few things out.’

Beau glances sideways to the glass seemingly filled with red wine sitting on the sinks edge. She closes her eyes. Drags in a slow breath. ‘And a good soaking in wine for everyone.’

‘Yes.’

Marion shifts again to Beau’s other side and resumes her work. Eventually she is done, and brushes gently over her undercut with a soft brush to whisk away the loose short hairs on her ears and stuck to the back of her neck. Before Beau can stand, Marion pulls a small tub of something that smells strongly of shell and those short green plants and she smears it over Beau back, over the lines of her tattoo.

‘What –’

‘This is a sun protector. It will keep the colours from fading in this,’ Marion taps a nail to the eye in the centre of Beau’s tattoo. ‘Make sure Jester puts it on her own as well, won’t you?’

‘Uh – y- no, I mean, if Jester _had_ a tattoo I totally would, but she _doesn’t_ so,’

‘Mhm.’ Marion continues to hold it out, brows raised. Beau takes the jar. ‘Thank you. I must say, it is a relief to know Jester has someone looking out for her.’

‘None of us would let Jes get hurt,’ Beau tells her almost irritably. ‘It’s got nothing to do with – she’s one of us. We’ll always protect her.’

Marion stands. The sun is setting behind her and a nimbus of golden light surrounds her. Whether it is natural, whether it is something she can’t help but affect with a little magic, it strikes Beau’s breath from her and her eyes drop to the ground.

‘Sun protection doesn’t fall into the purview of protecting someone,’ she tells Beau gently. ‘Not really. Seems to me it’s something you do for someone you care about. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘You put it on me,’ Beau points out, and she is sure in the solid rebuttal that affords her until Marion bends and presses a tender kiss to her crown. Beau panics; her heart hammers in her chest and the blades of her shoulders clash together as she tenses. But Marion does nothing more, simply pats her shoulder and says,

‘Come inside when you’re ready. I’ll put on another pot of tea. Your friend, the tall one. Caduceus. He left me a small packet I’ve been eager to try.’

//

‘Are you trying to tell me to give it up?’ Beau demands from her. She had spent some long minutes staring out at the ocean washing into golds beneath the setting sun and turning over their conversation in her mind until she was all twisted up in it. Shrugging free of the tangled web, Beau pushed herself back into Marion’s chambers and stood before the woman, leaving a few yards between them; with arms crossed tight across her chest and her face set, she is a study in furious confusion. ‘Well? Is that what you’re getting at?’

Marion glances up from her teapot. ‘No.’

‘Oh.’

‘But if it were? What would you do?’

Beau struggles for a moment. Between that same fury and that same confusion. She is vibrating with it—all the good work of the masseuse has, unfortunately, been ruined with how tense she has been strung.

‘I don’t – you can’t tell me what to do,’

‘No. But would it change your mind?’

‘No.’ The word breaks raw from Beau. The fury she has stoked begins to dim and she is left without its fire, its energy; Marion blinks and looks more closely at her. Beau doesn’t know what she can see, whether it be a fraction of her pain or something else, but whatever Marion sees, it sends her eyes widen with shock—like she has seen someone fall and sees broken bone, something that should be beneath skin, something terribly _wrong_ , something violently out of place.

Acid boils in Beau’s gut. She sees Beau for who she is now, somehow, and gods it hurts.

Marion takes a step forward.

Beau takes two steps back in response.

‘You don’t have to worry about it. About me doing anything about it,’ she says, voice low and heated and _needing_ Marion to understand. That burns too, hotter than the churning hungry acid. She _needs_ to know, she’ll never hurt Jester. Never. ‘But I’d still – I’d still _care_. About her. Obviously. But – god – I can’t believe I’m saying this to you of all people,’ she says with a stripped little laugh, ‘but I had kinda let myself hope a little that it might not be such a bad thing to be in love with her because fuck it, I’ll look out for her, I’ll make her laugh, I’ll follow her wherever she goes and I will _keep her safe_. But…’

‘But what?’

The question comes so quietly it feels like it simply _is_ there between them, rather than Marion asking it.

Marions eyes _burn_ with the question. Somehow, the heat of it doesn’t feel like an attack on Beau.

Beau’s mouth opens and closes a few times. She feels too exposed, ribcage wide the fuck open to show off her heart. She clears her throat. Smiles a terrible smile.

‘’s me, right? That’s the problem.’

‘Is it? Are you? A problem?’

Beau blinks. Her fury has drained out and out like the receding tide and now she’s…fuck. She’s tired. She looks away to the ocean.

‘Yeah.’

Beau puts a lot into that solitary word. Marion is perceptive, but even she won’t be able to parse out all the reasons Beau has from just that. Probably. Definitely.

When she finally gathers the courage to look back to Marion—this woman, Jester’s _mother_ , who she’s unloaded all this shit onto—she is met not with disapproval, or anger, or the disgust that Beau’s fear had conjured up.

Marion just looks _sad_.

‘I’m sorry.’

The lady shakes her head. ‘Drink some tea, Beau. Please.’

Beau eyes the door, the exit, her escape route. She steps forward and cradles the mug in both hands. Sips.

‘Good. Now, turn for me, would you?’ When Beau looks confused, Marion twirls her finger. Beau obliges. Finishes her turn facing Marion once more, who nods. ‘Mm. I did a rather lovely job with your hair. It helps, of course, to have such a lovely model.’

Beau blinks. Feels her cheeks burn. Just when she thought she was all filled up on confusion and the strength-sapping sadness, yet another flood of confusion hits her system. It’s more than simply not understanding what Marion is saying; Beau feels out of place now. Entirely turned around, as though at some point in their dance the ballroom had been transformed into a swamp and she doesn’t know where to step. But it has less to do with the fear of walking into an accusation of being unworthy, being disgusting, being _wrong_ for Jester, and a lot to do with how _nice_ Marion is being.

It’s weird.

It’s _nice_ , maybe, but it’s super weird.

Beau flinches when the woman steps forward to touch her prickling undercut. Stares at the approving smile.

‘I’m so fucking confused,’ Beau admits in a whisper. It feels like letting her guard slip, but she already exposed her entire heart so what’s another slip?

Marion smiles, a little sadly. And when the sad smile twists into mischief, she looks so much like Jester, Jester looks _so much_ like her, that Beau thinks dizzily how it would be a mistake to think that Jester gets that from the Traveller or from the Gentleman.

‘I have an idea.’

‘Oh no.’

Marion cackles. It’s not a lady-like chuckle, nor a belly laugh, but a full on _cackle_ ripe with that same mischief. ‘Oh you _do_ know Jester well,’ she says, and takes Beau’s hand. Tugs her into the second room of her quarters. Speaking back over her shoulder, she says, ‘You’re healed, clean, pampered, and looking _very_ handsome now –’

Beau lifts a self-conscious hand to her hair and wonders if this weird feeling is ever going to end. It’s like all the air is a perfumed fog and it’s turning everything it touches softer, unfamiliar. And it doesn’t have any effect on her—Beau feels the same as ever, too rough, too rugged to be here—but Marion doesn’t _mind_. Doesn’t _care_ that Beau doesn’t fit quite right. Maybe she doesn’t notice, but Beau finds that unlikely.

‘– all that’s left is clothes and you’ll look every bit a new woman.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t –’ Beau starts to resist then, but Marion is surprisingly strong herself and pulls Beau the final few feet into her walk-in wardrobe.

They pass dazzling gowns of every design Beau can imagine and many _many_ more than that, because Beau knows exactly jack shit about dress design. Hats and slinky skirts and robes and Beau is at once in _awe_ of it all because even she can tell that they’re _beautiful_. At the same time, that cold nervous feeling is building again because she really, really doesn’t want to wear any of this no matter how lovely they are. And also, what the fuck is happening? Because she just puked up her metaphorical guts in front of Marion and…was ignored? That heat returns, the burning all over her skin, and she imagines Marion, so nice, wanting to help her. Wanting to fix her. Putting her in front of a floor length mirror and seeing a stranger wearing her face. Imagines the suffocating sensation of a dress clutching around her shoulders and thighs, too tight and _far_ too fragile all at once, how she had felt like she could barely breathe for fear of breaking the delicate things, and her stomach drops and drops and drops.

She stops still.

The floorboards slide and sound under the anxious shift and tap of her booted feet.

Marion must see it on her because she drops Beau’s hand and moves further in alone. Beau can track her by the sound—Marion drags her fingers over the hanging dresses. _Costumes_ , Beau thinks. The habit knocks the wooden hangers together with a dull _thonk_ as she passes, growing fainter as she goes.

Part of her mind feels out of her body and it follows Marion, suspicious and watching. But the part of Beau that is her body is frozen in place. Her head spins. It feels too light with her haircut, and she reaches up to run her fingers over the perfectly shorn sides that almost buzz against her fingertips like so many thousands of short, soft needles.

‘Are you alright?’

Marion has returned. She stands with what looks like pants and shirts cast over her arms. And a deep look of concern she disguises neatly, tucks away under warmth. _Like mother, like daughter._

The thought, here and now, makes Beau flinch.

‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’

Beau’s hands drop to down to her neck and she grips hard, to the point of bruising, and doesn’t answer. Least that way she knows she isn’t touching what shouldn’t be touched. Not breaking things.

‘You can step out, if you wish, but I have a small selection of clothes I think you might be interested in.’ She waves a truly dismissive hand at the dresses. ‘Not these. Unless I’m mistaken, this isn’t typically what you prefer to wear.’

‘You’re not,’ Beau croaks.’

‘Ah. Good. I thought as much but… _Some_ people,’ she says in a tone that means _something_ but Beau is too dizzy to figure out what, ‘have the lovely ability of surprising me.’ Marion smiles warmly at Beau. Holds out her hand. ‘Come look,’ she says.

The way she says it makes it a question. A suggestion. Not a command.

Beau breathes. Unsticks her feet from the floor.

‘Why do you have dudes clothes?’

‘Sometimes, a client will request some clothes be made, or we have an important guest.’

‘Is tailoring another of your skills?’ For a moment, Beau is worried that the question will come out rude. Deriding. It isn’t meant to be, but sometimes she does sound that way.

Marion doesn’t seem to think so. Then again, she’s an actress of the highest order. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. I rather enjoy it. I’m sure Jester told you that I…am reluctant to leave the Chateau.’

Beau’s eye slide to her and then away again. They land on a golden shimmering dress. Beau folds her arms, hands tucked into her pits almost. She would like to think that she doesn’t break everything, but it would be easier to convince herself of that if the sight of the tiny scale-like pieces hadn’t made her want to peel them all away, see what would happen if she raked her fingers hard over the fabric. She looks back to Marion.

‘Yeah. She told us. Like she told you about my dad. And I’m sure heaps about everyone else.’

Marion inclines her head. ‘Well, embroidery, tailoring, I enjoy it. Something to do on the slower days.’

‘Is that how Jes learned to mend things?’

‘Hmm? Oh, I suppose so. She never liked to sit still for long, not to do something she thought was boring, so she learned how to just…make it happen.’ Marion smiles, part bemused, part proud. ‘Here we are.’ She stops, having lead Beau to what is very obviously a selection of mens clothes. And very obviously where she had taken the shirt and pants from—as a prop? To bring Beau deeper.

A small, less cynical part of Beau’s mind offers another suggestion. Perhaps, she thinks, Marion had brought it out as reassurance. That this _wasn’t_ some kind of trick.

The voice sounds a little like Jester.

This section of the wardrobe is far smaller than the other, but it is filled all the same and with lovely outfits. Finery, bejewelled and useless in anything but a high-society function runs all the way down to casual clothing, something a sailor might wear for ceremony. And all manner of articles in between, from what Beau suspects is somewhat religious—and she has some ideas why _that_ might be here, which doesn’t do to think on for long—to handsomely crafted robes and tunics and what Beau thinks for a moment are dresses too but turn out to be more like long tunics. She vaguely recognises them as Marquesian, but they’re too much like dresses for comfort and she passes them by.

‘Take whatever catches your eye,’ Marion is telling her. ‘I so rarely dip into this section and it would be nice to see them worn for once.’

‘Are you sure? Some of this stuff is really nice.’

‘Better than you digging into Jester’s wardrobe. It’s lacking in some respects, I know,’

‘Jester’s wardrobe is just fine,’ Beau tells her, heatedly.

Marion looks at her for a moment. Then says, ‘I only meant that she’s outgrown so many of her dresses. And the style might not be your preference. That’s all.’

‘Oh.’

‘I keep misspeaking around you, don’t I?’

‘I keep tryna pick a fight so between the two of us, I think you’re probably fine.’

‘Pick a fight?’ Marion raises her brows. ‘Or protect Jester?’

Beau swallows. Turns back to the coats she’s perusing. She flicks through them almost without seeing until she comes to a sea blue-green coat. It’s in the cut of those fancier sailing coats, the ones that button across the chest and waist and then cut back at the hips and thighs, disappearing into a short tail. The chest is awash in brilliant silver and blue brocade that sweeps out from the buttons and up to the shoulders in a wide arc. It’s not too heavy, not too ostentatious, but it hints prettily at sea-foam and waves without being too on-the-nose.

‘I had this made a long time ago,’ Marion tells her, seeing what has her so transfixed. She eases it off its hanger and manipulates Beau into it like she is a shopfront mannequin. Compliant. All joints. It sits almost perfectly across her shoulders. Is maybe a touch loose on the arms. ‘A little big for you,’ Marion murmurs, smoothing her hands over the shoulders, tugging it to sit a little straighter. ‘But nothing that can’t be altered.’

‘You had this made?’

Marion nods. A sad smile—familiar, too, from the hours and hours Beau has watched Jester’s expressions—curls her lips.

‘You got it for him. Dosal.’

‘I did, yes.’

‘I—can’t take this.’

‘Nonsense.’ Marion clicks her tongue. Gold eyes flash with something heated, molten. ‘You look very handsome in it. See?’ She steps aside and Beau feels but doesn’t see the way she smiles, victorious. She doesn’t see it because she can’t pull her eyes away from the floor length mirror she _knew_ would be in here.

She can see herself in it.

Tall, lean, brown. Hair sharply cut and top knot ever so slightly askew. That’s fine. That’s her. That’s—it looks right, to not look perfect. It’d feel weird if it was. And over top of her somewhat tattered, somewhat grimed clothes sits a heavy, handsome coat. It makes her shoulders look broader, her chest squarer, though the pinch of it shows her tapered waist off neatly. The short tail makes her legs look long as _hell_.

Beau’s eyes track back up to her own face.

She looks fucking wild. Eyes wide and confused. Mouth set in a half-grimace, fading the longer she looks at herself in this dope-ass coat.

‘I look like I’m playing dress up.’

‘Do you dislike it?’

Beau says nothing. Not about that, anyway. She shrugs out of the coat. Sets it back on its hanger and returns it to its place. Hidden in the far back of Marion’s closet. Hidden in the far back of Marion’s mind. Somewhere that doesn’t need her to go stirring it up.

‘I should go,’ is what Beau says. ‘Thanks. For the haircut. And your time.’

//

Beau doesn’t think she’s gone crazy overnight, but she has to be to think that Marion is doing what she is doing. The woman cancelled her plans for the day and delighted Jester by asking her to lunch and then she had turned and asked Beau if maybe she would like to come as well.

‘Uh. Yeah, I’ll tell the others.’

‘No.’ Marion’s smile is deceptively sweet. ‘Just you.’

‘Just. Me. And you and Jester.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Uh. That seems a little – ‘ Beau’s eyes dart across to Jester, who looks confused and stirringly happy and then, much to Beau’s horror, _thoughtful_. ‘Weird. It seems a little weird, honestly.’

‘No, Beau, it’s nice! You should come! She should come, right mama? You should come! _Please_ , Beau? It’ll be so nice!’

‘Jes, hold on, it’s fancy and I’m, y’know, not cut out for a place like that.’

‘Who cares what they think?’

‘Me?’

‘Since when?’ Jester demands. Her blue eyes burn hot with the question, so hot they threaten to burn away any hint of a lie.

Beau blinks. Searches for the answer. Can only think of _Right now_ and maybe _Forever_. She tries not to think too hard about Marion being in the room with them and for sure listening to every single word out of her mouth. ‘Jes,’ she says more quietly, ‘I’m – I don’t do well at places like that. I’ll swear at the wait staff and eat the weird decorative bread sculpture or whatever by accident and,’

Jester giggles. ‘That would be funny.’

‘Okay, maybe that would be funny, but,’

‘And you wouldn’t swear at the wait staff.’

‘Would too.’

‘They’d have to deserve it,’ Jester rebuts stubbornly.

‘Well I don’t have anything to wear,’ Beau says out of desperation, and a drip of cold sweat travels down from her hairline down her spine.

Marion’s smile grows, and Beau can see the telltale pointed tips of tiefling canines. ‘I have just the outfit. Don’t you worry about a thing.’

She tells them that lunch is in the building across the road, which has Jester alternating dancing around her room as she gets ready and nearly crying into Beau’s shoulder with joy and relief, and sends for Beau about an hour before their reservation.

The coat. That _fucking_ coat. Is draped over the curve of the chaise alongside a handsome pair of breeches Beau recognises as riding pants from a misspent youth in the minor squabblings of nobility, and a crisp shirt of a green so light it looks almost silver.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Beau demands of Marion. Bites her tongue hard when the woman fixes her with a stern look. ‘Sorry. Just – ‘ Beau adjusts her tone but it’s hard to adjust the singular thought that plays on loop in her mind. ‘What the fuck?’

‘I’d like for you to come with us. But I can make excuses for you, if you’d prefer.’

Beau scowls. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know why not.’

‘I find that I don’t.’ Marion sweeps closer and now Beau can see that she looks resplendent in ivory. Gold jewellery drips from her horns and in a delicately applied line of makeup that sweeps out from each eye. ‘You tell me that you’re in love with my daughter, and then that you’ll never do anything about it, and in the same breath that you will follow her and protect her and love her in terrible misery.’

‘I didn’t say anything about misery,’

‘You didn’t have to.’ Marion lifts a hand. Cups Beau’s cheek. Her eyes are a liquid gold again, warm. ‘Call me a romantic, but I don’t think hurting is part of love. It can be terribly hard to see if it is all that you’ve had,’

Beau flinches. It’s obvious that’s what Marion thinks of her, and she isn’t _wrong_ but…

‘How would you know?’ she asks. Pulls out of Marion’s hold. ‘You love Jester and kept her locked in a room. Without friends. Without adventure. She made up a god to keep herself company. You think _that_ isn’t hurt?’

It’s Marion’s turn to flinch now. She closes her eyes.

Free for an instant of that stare, Beau sucks in a quick breath. Feels the pressure in her lungs, rather than recede with the relief of new air, tighten further. She can imagine what is to come—Marion will be all sweetness and polite as she asks Beau to leave, won’t even give her the courtesy of letting Beau be angry with her, and –

‘You’re right. A little on the harsh side of blunt but…entirely correct.’

‘What? Sorry. What?’

‘But still the romantic in me says that if you would only _talk_ to her, you wouldn’t hurt so much.’

Beau shakes her head. ‘I don’t understand. This is where you tell me to stay the hell away from your daughter.’

‘Why?’ Marion’s eyes burn, scald. Bring everything to the surface like blisters. ‘Because you’re a liar? Because you’re rude? Because you look to hurt other people before you can be hurt by them?’ Beau opens her mouth to say _yes_ to all of that, but Marion isn’t done. ‘Because you’re brusque and uncouth and I’m sure you’ve had your share of peasant girls you’ve charmed into the hayloft with a smile and a flex of your arm? Or,’ she says, and Beau flinches before Marion even says it, because she’s handling the words like they’re caustic, holding back, like she knows this could break Beau, ‘is it because someone has you utterly convinced that you are simply _bad_?’

Beau’s throat locks up and she can’t breathe, let alone speak.

‘Oh, _Beauregard_ ,’ she says, and Beau wants to cry because she didn’t know that her name could be said with so much tenderness. ‘There’s no such thing, my darling. There’s no such thing as a child born bad.’ She steps forward and this time Beau doesn’t move. Can’t, maybe. Marion is so slow, so careful with it, with the way she lifts both hands and cradles Beau’s chin and she’s maybe an inch shorter than Beau but she lifts her chin until Beau’s eyes, dropped low, meet her own. Wipes her thumbs over dry cheeks. ‘There’s no such thing,’ she says again. ‘And as much as I look—and I have _looked_ and _looked_ because you are enamoured of my little sapphire and I have to be sure—as much as I look, I can’t find a shred of it in you.’

‘ – shred of what?’ Beau says through numb lips.

‘Of bad. And so,’ Marion continues, like she hasn’t just entirely wrecked Beau’s system, sent her whole self tumbling into itself like a castle of cards, ‘if you are not bad, and you are in love with my daughter, and you look so _very_ handsome thanks to the Chateau’s efforts,’ she teases, ‘won’t you talk to her?’

‘Talk to her,’ Beau repeats dumbly.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s your choice, darling.’ Marion tucks a swoop of Beau’s hair behind her ear. Kisses her forehead again. ‘Think on it. No need to punish yourself. No need to hurt while you love her.’

She goes to step back, only to stop when she feels Beau’s hand, trembling, holding one hand where it is on her cheek. Beau’s eyes are glazed over with clear confusion, like she’s never heard a scrap of a kind word in her fucking life, and as she trips over what Marion has said to her this morning she wonders if she ever has. More than the typical _You’re hot_ or _Good work, nerd_ or _Thanks for punching that monster real good_. Things that don’t really mean shit. Maybe she has and just can’t think of it right now, but as she thinks on it, and on Marion, Jester’s _mother,_ she knows without the shadow of doubt that her own mother has certainly never said anything so kind. Never seemed to believe it, if she had.

‘Come to lunch with me and with Jester,’ Marion continues quietly. ‘The coat is altered. It’s a gift. I want you to have it, whether you talk to her or not. It’s yours, and I certainly won’t take it back in this condition.’

‘Condition? What?’ Beau allows herself to look at the finished product that Marion holds up for her. She chokes on a laugh. ‘Sleeveless. It’s _sleeveless_. _Fuck_.’


End file.
